The Afghan Taliban Information Minister Mawlawi Qudratullah Jamal Saturday said Islam prescribed the best ways to control AIDS throughout the world.

The minister said non-Islamic practices like illegal sex and impious living were the causes of the disease.

He claimed there were no cases of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) in Afghanistan, most of which is controlled by the ruling puritanical militia.

"Islam is a perfect religion. Those who adjust themselves according to it are saved from these problems," he told AFP. "AIDS to me does not seem like a disease -- it is a torment."

If the world's people had not desisted from piety, they would have never been plagued by the deadly pandemic, the Taliban minister said.

The Taliban, building on a stunning rise in Koranic schools in southern Afghanistan and Pakistan, took the once liberal Afghan capital in 1996 to enforce its ultra-orthodox interpretation of Islamic Sharia law.

The regime stones to death married adulterers and administers public lashing to unmarried ones.

Afghan women are barred from outdoors education and work in Taliban areas.

Health officials in Kabul said there were no reported cases of AIDS registered in the country – KABUL (AFP)